The Moroccan Labor Code denies child domestics access to the
primary mechanism protecting workers: as domestic workers they are excluded
from the Labor Codes provisions on conditions of employment, and labor
inspectors are not authorized to enter private homes so they cannot effectively
enforce the Labor Codes minimum age of employment.113 Child domestic workers
ability to make complaints about ill-treatment and to seek assistance leaving
an abusive workplace is further constrained by their isolation from family,
peers, and outsiders who could potentially intervene on their behalf.

Seventeen-year-old Zahra H. told us,

[The employer] used bad language all the time, but if I
broke something she would hit me or pull my hair. When I was fed up I couldnt
go out. I wouldnt tell her [that I wanted to go out] because I knew she would
say no and anyway there wasnt anyplace to goI dont have family here. When I
did go out I came to [an NGO working with child domestics]. I found it by
accident. I was walking in the street and I told someone [about my situation]
and that person told me to go to a police officer and say what happened, but I
was afraid. I sat in the train station for a long time and a police officer saw
me and asked me if I wanted to go home but I was afraid [to tell him my story.]
After a while I told him and he took me to the [NGO] office at the train
station and they brought me here.114

Younger childrens opportunities to leave an abusive
workplace without assistance are particularly limited. Because of their age,
they are less likely to be allowed out of the house alone, and thus have fewer
opportunities to run away or complain to someone outside the household. Very
young children, and particularly children from the countryside, may have no
idea how to navigate a large city, how to find transport home, or even exactly
where home is. According to UNICEF, [v]ery young girls who flee abusive jobs often
dont know where to go so they end up on the street or in the [`Abdelsalem] Bennani Center [a juvenile detention facility that also houses abandoned children].115

Several children told Human Rights Watch that they relied on
annual visits home to convince their parents to remove them from an abusive
work situation.116
This was especially true for girls who do not receive family visits at their
place of employment.117
Amina L. told us she was able to end her first job, which began when she was
eight, in this way. I would eat alone, sleep alone, and I didnt go to school.
The work was very hard so I didnt stay there long. When I went home I cried
and refused to go back.118
Loubna G., who started work at ten, told us she worked for two years before she
was able to quit her first job in this way: When I went home I didnt go
back.119

Infrequent contact between parents and children may make
parents less able to recognize signs of abuse, particularly if, as one study
has suggested, parents desire to protect their children conflicts with their
desire for the child to continue to bring in needed income. Conversely,
children who feel intense pressure to provide for their families may be slower
to complain to parents about abusive employers if they feel that it will do no
good or that their families depend on them. In some instances children told us
when they did complain to parents about abuse their parents appeared to be slow
to take action to remove children from abusive households. For example, Saida
B., the fifteen-year-old who ran away after her employer tried to thrust her
head in a washing machine, told us she had previously complained to her mother
about abuses, without relief: I would see [my mother] once a month when she
came to the house to get the money. When I told my mother about the problems
she would curse me and I was afraid to tell her that I didnt want to work in
houses because she is easily angered (`asabiya).120 Zahra H., seventeen,
described the reaction when she told her mother her employers son was sexually
harassing her:

The first time was when I was sixteen. I told my mother
and she said dont worry about it. She was afraid because they were giving her
moneyI was earning 500 dh (about $55) per month thenand she was afraid if I
came home I wouldnt find another job. I ran away from that house while they
were sleeping.121

[113] See
Chapter XI for a more detailed discussion of child domestics exclusion from
the protection of the law and the governments failure to enforce other
relevant criminal legislation.

[116] The 2001 Casablanca study of child domestics found that only 56.9 percent of girls under fifteen
visited their families while working, and of those, 61.2 percent only visited
their families on religious holidays, and 33.1 percent only visited during the
annual vacation. Regional Office for Greater Casablanca, Study of Girl Domestics, p. 43.

[117] The 2001 Casablanca study of child domestics found that 29.7 percent of girls under fifteen and 43.2
percent of girls fifteen through seventeen did not receive family visits at
their place of employment. Of the girls under fifteen who did receive family visits,
74.5 percent described the visits as being solely to collect the girls
salary. Regional Office for Greater Casablanca, Study of Girl Domestics, p. 43.